Famous Smokers Who Have Died From It.

I quit smoking with Chantix in 12 days, you can do the same. Good Luck. Got this list because James Franciscus was on TV tonight with Under The Planet of The Apes. He deflowered Jane Fonda and died at 57 from emphysema, 4 pack a day smoker. ************************

R12, he was never "forgiven" for chasing and breaking the Almighty Babe Ruth's single season HR record.

During his epic season he received death threats (as did the awesome Hank Aaron in '74), was booed at games, and generally was hounded like a criminal. His hair fell out; what remained turned grey and white in a matter of months. It was just awful.

And what did MLB do when Maris finally achieved what everyone had claimed could never be done? They put a fucking *asterisk* next to his name in the record books. All because the owners had increased the number of games played per season. Maris was an emotional and physical wreck for the rest of his life.

Completely opposite of the fawning attention the juiced-up Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa received at every ballpark as they chased Aaron's and Maris' records in the late 90s.

by I don't wheeze anymore!

reply 27

02/17/2013

R27 nailed it.

R13: If two thirds of the people who rode in cars died in crashes, you think we would consider other transportation?

And if it had been an electrical fire would you say he died of electrocution?

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reply 29

02/17/2013

R29:

That makes no sense.

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reply 30

02/17/2013

R28 --

You make no sense.

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reply 31

02/17/2013

R31:

I thought my argument that smoking was the cause of Jack Cassidy's fire and hence his death was a commonsense observation to most alert readers. I still do, but apparently you require some extra help.

By the way, I liked your last comment. I hadn't heard, "I know you are but what am I?" insight since grade school.

In your hypothetical of a man dying from burns caused by electricity, I would not use the term "electrocution," but I would say the man died of burns, and the proximate cause was an electrical problem: installation, maintenance, design, user error, etc.

To find the cause of injury under the law there are several tests, but the one that applies here is the "but for" test. But for the flaw in the electrical system, the fire would not have occurred, and the man would not have suffered the injury.

Jack Cassidy would not have died from burns but for careless smoking. Get it?

It is well-settled law that a smoker can be held legally responsible for damage his careless smoking causes.

Here's the theory behind it: A reasonable man would know that careless use of smoking materials can cause a fire and should take steps to minimize the risk.

There are cases in which a careless smoker discarded a cigarette into a pool of gasoline. The smoker is liable, the gasoline manufacturer is not.

Here's another aspect that would play into liability falling on the smoker. Smoking inside and smoking inside in bed create risks that a reasonable smoker would know and could avoid easily.

It is not possible to avoid electricity.

By denying that cigarettes caused his death, but the fire did, you are focusing on the cause of death as a pathologist might -- death as a result of burns, smoke inhalation etc.

But that avoids the "but for" issue. If your theory was the law, then the investigation of airplane crashes would stop.

No more looking for faulty parts, no more talk of bad weather, or bird collisions. There would be no more scramble to find the black box.

The only cause of injury and death would be sudden impact with the ground.

If you are still in doubt, try causing a forest fire or a house fire with smoking materials, and see who they come for.

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reply 32

02/17/2013

It is strange how some smokers die at young or relatively young ages while others go on to old age. There really is no science to it. One of my great-grandmothers smoked like a chimney - filterless Chesterfields and Lucky Strikes - and made it to 91.

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reply 33

02/17/2013

The anti-tobacco Nazis want to let you to believe that lung cancer didn't exist before cigarettes and cigars.

Pfft.

by I don't wheeze anymore!

reply 34

02/17/2013

Susan Hayward died of a brain tumor. She co-starred in [italic]The Conqueror,[/italic] which was filmed downwind of a nuclear-testing site in Utah. Hayward and co-stars John Wayne and Agnes Moorehead were smokers, but 91 of the 220 people involved in making the film developed cancer within 25 years of shooting.

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reply 35

02/17/2013

All this talk about smoking makes me want to go for a puff.

by I don't wheeze anymore!

reply 36

02/17/2013

R33:

The science to it is that we know smokers who live to be 91. We don't spend much time with people who died young years ago from smoking.

In statistics it is called selection bias. The set of all old people who have survived a smoking habit consists entirely of old smokers.

The entire set of smokers, on the other hand, includes many young people who have died from smoking whom we no longer see.

R34:

I don't know if you are being disingenuous, in denial (most likely), or you are just dumb.

Stop smoking advocates would never say that tobacco is the only cause of lung cancer or that lung cancer did not exist until tobacco use became common.

There are several causes of lung cancer, but smoking is by far the main cause, as study after study has confirmed.

People were dying of lung cancer before cigarettes and cigars became available, radon is a prime example of a natural occurring cause. Joe Paterno probably got his that way. He lived in a high radon area.

The point is that if you do not use tobacco, you are greatly increasing your chances of avoiding the disease. Study after study shows that as the habit decreases in a population, as it is doing all around the world, the incidence of lung cancer decreases, see link.

We want people to stop smoking the same way we want people to check their homes for radon and remove it, or as we want corporations who use asbestos to use something else. Minimizing dangerous chemicals in the lungs saves lives.

Our friends and loved ones, smokers and non-smokers who are around smokers, will live longer, and the nation will have lower health care costs.

There is the added benefit of making the air cleaner for all of us.

by I don't wheeze anymore!

reply 37

02/17/2013

"... and the nation will have lower health care costs."

You ridiculous, smug fool!

Oh, so they live to die from something else that costs society EVEN MORE such as Alzheimer's disease or languishing for years in a nursing home.

What you posted it cannot be defended so don't even try.

by I don't wheeze anymore!

reply 38

02/17/2013

Sorry but if they make it to 80, then I don't consider them as having 'died from smoking'

by I don't wheeze anymore!

reply 39

02/17/2013

So many in that list died very young.

Johnny Carson, a perpetual smoker, died of emphysema.

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reply 40

02/17/2013

R38:

Well, it so easy to defend that I will do it despite your command.

You are using a cost/benefit analysis claiming that it is cheaper in the long run to have people die of lung cancer than to live and die of years later from something else.

That is something entirely different than what I was claiming, but perhaps I was not clear.

Compare these alternatives to see which is cheaper.

Find the average duration for the treatment of lung cancer. Let's say seven years, at the end of which a person will have died or will be declared a cancer survivor.

Take any seven years of a person's life, find out his expected medical costs, and the consequent cost to society. Those expenses will be lower if he does not have to be treated for lung cancer.

If you have figures that are different, that treating a person for lung cancer is cheaper over a given seven year period than not treating him, bring them forward.

You are making an entirely different claim. You are arguing that If we keep a person from getting lung cancer now, that over the entire span of his life, the extension of life span of 15 years, 30 years, or whatever, that his medical care will then cost society more than if he had died of lung cancer when he was younger.

That has nothing to do what I said, but you must think shifting the argument makes it easier to answer.

In any case, however you twist my words, what you say is still not completely true and to the extent it is true it is irrelevant compared do other values society has that are held more dear than the balance sheet.

If a person does not encounter lung cancer because he has taken simple steps to avoid it, he then will have more years in which he contributes to the economy, working, producing things of of intrinsic value -- work product.

If he is not employed, he can help other people who work by providing child care, house work, etc. Such work also contributes to the GDP. He also will be a taxpayer.

He is adding dollars and cents to the economy that a person who has died cannot. When he is old and needs care, those extra earnings offset the added expense old age brings.

Also, if he does not get lung cancer, he will add intangibles to the benefit of society. He will be adding to the pleasure of other people who love him -- all of us presumably have a circle of friends and family who we would dearly miss if they go too soon from lung cancer.

I can see why intangible contributions may never have occurred to you.

Even seeing a person go through lung cancer and survive, a rather rare event, brings heartache to those around him, depending on the person who is afflicted of course.

That's why we treat all illnesses and correct all life-threatening hazards possible -- life is precious and has value beyond dollars and cents. We have an obligation to each other.

If we follow your line of thinking, that it would be cheaper overall to let people smoke and die young, we can say that about every single life-threatening issue.

It is cheaper to let people die when a Ford Pinto gas tank explodes. It is cheaper to let corporations foul our water and air -- they don't have to put in cleaning fixtures, and people don't live as long.

It would be cheaper to have no workplace safety measures. It would be cheaper to have no fire codes, fire departments and police.

It is cheaper to let children die of diphtheria and polio than to inoculate them -- no money spent on vaccines and no worry about the expense of their care ever. It would be cheaper to let AIDs patients die.

In any case, it should be clear from what I said that I was claiming that current medical costs will be lower if there are fewer people sick with lung cancer.

Do you have figures that show the opposite? That it is cheaper during the average number of treatment years to provide health care to a lung cancer patient than it is to provide care to a person who does not have lung cancer?

Please, show them. These I would like to see.

by I don't wheeze anymore!

reply 42

02/17/2013

"Two thirds of the people who spoke long-term never die of cancer or other smoking-related illnesses."

Dear r13, you do realise that for one third of smokers to die from a smoking-related illness is an awful fucking lot of deaths caused by smoking?!

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reply 43

02/17/2013

Smoking causes heart disease.

Heart disease is the biggest killer in the U.S.

Of course, not all deaths from heart disease are due to smoking, but a good number of the deaths are.

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reply 44

02/17/2013

Lung Cancer (non-smoker) Dana Reeve 44

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reply 45

02/17/2013

Everyone born before 1955.

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reply 46

02/17/2013

I remember watching an anti-smoking PSA Yul Brynner made, which aired after his death. It shook me up because IIRC it started with him saying that if we were seeing this, it was because he was dead.

Emphysema is a nasty disease. You ultimately suffocate.

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reply 47

02/17/2013

Has the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded a special grant to come into DataLounge and post all this anti-smoking info?

by I don't wheeze anymore!

reply 48

02/17/2013

Post request would someone start a thread on e cigarettes and vapes

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reply 49

02/17/2013

[quote]Lung Cancer (non-smoker) Dana Reeve 44

I heard that she most certainly did smoke, but preferred it not be known.

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reply 50

02/18/2013

Grayson Hall, not sure of her age, but smoking killed as it did Kings Edward vii and viii, George v and vi.

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reply 51

02/18/2013

If you look at that list again, you will see two heirs to the Reynolds tobacco fortune listed there. They died of lung cancer from their own product, but they were buried in solid gold caskets thanks to the price of a carton of cigs.

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reply 52

02/18/2013

[quote]We want people to stop smoking the same way we want people to check their homes for radon and remove it

Oh, thanks! Yes, they came to my house again last week. A neighbor said they were Jehovah's Witnessnes but their behavior was so similar to that of concerned non-smokers that I'll bet they were just worried about radon on my property, as you point out.

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reply 53

02/18/2013

R42, you're the one shifting the argument. You launched the "higher health care costs" accusation, don't start blathering about the intangibles of love and friendship because you were called out by someone who knows your claim is full of shit.

And your nonsensical seven years of lung cancer treatment only highlights that you don't know what you're talking about.

R38 was correct and research backs it up.

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reply 54

02/18/2013

Nan Kempner, Slim Keith, Babe Paley, Pat Buckley...

Jackie Kennedy smoked three packs a day although she died from non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

But most of the grandes dames of New York society smoked themselves to death.

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reply 55

02/18/2013

The great critic Kenneth Tynan died at 53 from emphysema. John Updike died at 76 from lung cancer. (He'd stopped smoking, and drinking, for quite a while, but evidently not soon enough.)

Both said they needed to smoke to write at their best in their prime. It was a high best at a high price.

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reply 56

02/18/2013

On the 21st of February, I will be a non-smoker for six-months! I used wellbutrin, and I know some people have problems with it, but I was a chronic smoker and couldn't breathe. I feel so much better. God I felt so trapped by smoking. The relief of not smoking makes up for the occasional craving.

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reply 57

02/18/2013

R54:

Rather than treat or prevent deadly public hazards, you and R38 would agree that it is better to let people die because that is cheaper in the long run?

Would you apply that bottom-line-evaluation to every situation? Or only to the remedial measures you don't like?

If that is not what you mean, please explain how I have it wrong.

As I asked before, would you apply it to vaccination of children? To food and drug safety? To the prevention and treatment of AIDs?

It would be cheaper right now to stop giving out condoms and stop advertising campaigns about AIDS. It would be cheaper in the long run because we wouldn't have to worry about the expenses of old age for people who get AIDs while they are young.

I bet you can come up with figures to show it is cheaper in the long run.

How do you distinguish that situation from the stop smoking campaigns?

Safe drinking water is an expensive proposition, and cholera thins the herd. Would that culling process be all right with you?

If it is not all right with you, how do you distinguish the prevention of waterborne disease programs from smoking prevention programs, including education about the risks of smoking in public forums like this?

If we stopped all remedial measures, we could save billions on the treatment of the weak -- there wouldn't be any left.

Or is it only when you want people to stop bugging you about a personal habit that harms you and them that you want nothing done?

You have not answered these questions:

Is it cheaper to treat someone for lung cancer during its duration or to treat someone who doesn't have it over the same time period?

When is it preferable to save money by letting people die early rather than spend money on them later? Always? Sometimes? If only sometimes, who gets to make that decision? You?

Does the human life ever have value beyond the bottom line?

If you can't answer those questions, you are blowing smoke, so to speak.

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reply 58

02/18/2013

Patrick Swayze should be on this list. He was a three-pack-a day smoker. Smoking is a major risk factor for the pancreatic cancer that killed him. He smoked so heavily that he set off the carbon monoxide detector in the airplane that he owned and piloted. Even after his diagnosis he continued to smoke.

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reply 59

02/18/2013

I can't believe you actually went through the trouble to get all that info, OP. You've managed to turn the amount of $18 into something macabre.

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reply 60

02/18/2013

R58, people don't have to smoke. If they want to smoke then they should acknowledge their increased health risks and pay more for their own health cover.

"Does the human life ever have value beyond the bottom line?" Smokers are the ones who shit most all over the value of human life, and they certainly don't value their own - bit hypocritical of them to demand we value their lives when they don't value them.

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reply 61

02/18/2013

Peter Jennings

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reply 62

02/18/2013

Smoking had nothing to do with it -- see R38 and R54. He died of pancreatic cancer.

No one dies of smoking. You may die of lung cancer, but that is not dying of smoking.

No one ever died from smoking.

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reply 63

02/18/2013

So many in OP's list are wrong.

"Jack Cassidy - 50 - Fire (smoking in bed)"

Jack Cassidy was passed out drunk and a smoldering cigarette, which could have been on the floor, lit the place on fire.

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reply 64

02/18/2013

R60:

When the BS gets that deep it takes a long time to shovel through it.

Health care should be a right free to everyone smoker and non-smoker alike.

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reply 65

02/18/2013

We can add Richard Briers to the list.

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reply 66

02/18/2013

Over a lifetime of smoking, smokers pay a lot of star and federal tobacco tax.

A key argument of the anti-tobacco crowd is that smokers cost others within the state for their excessive healthcare. They have trotted out this canard since Day One.

They ignore the tobacco tax issue completely!

That tax could have been set aside in a special fund to pay for their supposed "excessive medical costs" that they claim are borne by others within a state.

Do any states do this? Oh hell no!

They add the tobacco tax revenues to their General Fund.

So, if what the anti-tobacco crowd is claiming – that smokers cost their fellow citizens – then it would seem to me that smokers get off the dole quicker than the average citizen due to early death (as the antis claim over and over, ad nauseam) and smokers have in a sense "prepaid" for their "excessive" health care through their tobacco taxes over their years of smoking.

I used to smoke -- smoked for a few decades -- and I am sure that the my state's tax revenue people are feeling my lack of paying tobacco tax anymore. I quit four years ago. Ha, ha.

So, just to cheese off the tobacco Nazis on this thread, I hope my healthcare bankrupts me after I run through my private health insurance, and I am forced to go on the public dole. That will be after my insurance company spends $1.75 million on me.

Fuck you anti-tobacco Nazis!

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reply 67

02/18/2013

[quote]You may die of lung cancer, but that is not dying of smoking.

That's like saying: You may die of bullets, but that is not dying from guns.

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reply 68

02/18/2013

R67, whatever tobacco addicts pay in tax does not equate with how much they might have to pay once their addiction has given them a nasty disease.

R66, the death of Richard Briers actually points out a counter-argument to these idiots who claim "I'd rather smoke a pack a day and enjoy myself than live an extra ten years and die at 82 a dribbling mess who can't clean up my poop." Indeed, Richard Briers lived a relatively long life, dying at 79 of smoking-related emphysema. But, his final years had been utter shit, precisely because of the smoking-related emphysema. It's not like smokers live a relatively ok life till about 70, then fall ill for a few months and die suddenly. Medical advances mean even smokers can live longer, but those longer years are often hellish, spent combating the effects of tobacco addition. Non-smokers (if they are lucky enough to have avoided the disgusting effects of second-hand smoke) are more likely to have a decent quality of life in their final years.

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reply 69

02/18/2013

R69 --

Show your math.

And stop using a weasel word like "might."

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reply 70

02/18/2013

R67:

What's wrong with "might"?

Some smokers don't die of smoking. Those who die from smoking might die quickly after the onset or live a long time.

Some would exceed their tax contributions in health care costs for tobacco problems, some won't.

Have any of the smokers posting here considered how an early disability or death from smoking related diseases affect those around them who love them?

Emphysema is a godawful way to die,

The patient has to be assisted in late stages, which can last three or four years.

During that time the patient cannot go outside, is tethered to an oxygen tank. He cannot walk more than a few steps without help. He is smothered to death over a period of many months.

It imposes an enormous burden on caretakers in time, labor, and heartache.

The two states that allow assisted suicide list cancer first for the reason people seek suicide. The other diseases were mostly late stage ALS and emphysema.

Those people who chose suicide listed lack of autonomy rather than pain as the motivating factor.

As R69 says, it is not as if a smoker who dies from smoking has healthy life but falls over five years sooner. If smoking kills you can expect to spend the last few years being tortured to death, with no autonomy.

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reply 71

02/18/2013

I've always been a Judy Holliday fan--she died way too young at 43. But--she died of breast cancer, not lung cancer. See Wikipedia. Not sure if she smoked or not--most people did back then.

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reply 72

02/18/2013

Yeah. Smoking has nothing to do with breast cancer.

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reply 73

02/18/2013

Debi Austin, featured in anti-smoking 'Voicebox' ad, dies.

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reply 74

02/28/2013

Um, it's all in your genes people. Superagers can do any damned thing they want and still live to a ripe old age. Yep, I'm a smoker, fully committed to my own destruction. I am not necessarily excited about adding five or more years to the END of my life by quitting.

I would have said about Jack Cassidy that smoking was the proximate cause of his death. "But for the fact that he was smoking, he would not have died."

If electricity had started the fire instead, then something in the electrical system would have been the proximate cause: "But for the fact that there was a problem in the electrical system he would not have died."

Everyone has to live around electricity, we have no choice. Also, very few of us can know when an electrical system has potentially fatal flaws until it is too late.

None of us has to be around tobacco smoking. A reasonable person is expected to know that smoking presents a fire hazard.

While the electrocution quip is mildly amusing, the hypothetical has nothing to do with the risks of smoking or with Jack Cassidy's death.

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reply 78

02/28/2013

But what if you were crossing I-4 in Los Angeles during rush hour and got hit by a Mack truck. Would this be a walking accident or a car accident?

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reply 79

02/28/2013

Poor Jack Cassidy. If only Cole Porter had been alive and with Jack, Cole could have crawled on his hands and knees to where the smoke was coming from, spit on it and put the fire out.

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reply 80

02/28/2013

[quote]Jeanne Tierney (actress) - 70 - Emphysema

Who??

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reply 81

02/28/2013

R79:

If your question is serious, we need to know more.

Does I-4 have crosswalks and was the pedestrian using one? That's probably not what you are asking about.

You probably are thinking of a pedestrian crossing the road in the middle of traffic. It might seem that it was his fault for being out there, but that is not necessarily true.

What was the pedestrian doing there? Was he dazed from an auto accident for which there were sufficient warning signs, flares and so forth, that the Mac truck driver should have have known about the safety problems? Was the driver speeding, drunk, and/or overly-tired?

Did the pedestrian cross through a hole in the fence that was the state's responsibility? If so, was the state on notice and for how long? Did many people use this hole for a short cut and some got hurt, but the state did nothing?

There are intangibles to consider. What if the person was a child near a school? A disabled veteran with combat medals? The state may offer a settlement to avoid trial and attendant publicity. Then the question of responsibility would be avoided.

It sounds like a case in which fault might be apportioned. Perhaps the driver is held to be ten percent liable and the pedestrian 90% so the recovery reflects that.

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reply 82

03/01/2013

"Errol Flynn"

I think Mr Flynn's tobacco smoking had only a marginal effect in his demise...

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reply 83

03/01/2013

Brian Keith - 75 - emphysema and lung cancer induced suicide (by gunshot). Said of his last days that they were hellish and he wished he could just die - eventually, to stop the suffering associated with suffocating minute-by-minute, he put a bullet in his brain. This happened after a brief emphysema-related hospitalization. One can only imagine what he learned during that visit with his doctors, but he was probably confronted by a short, determined future filled only with breathless torment.

Most smokers I know have a "devil may care" attitude. They say things like "live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse" or "nobody lives forever". Bottom line? NOBODY can fix stupid.

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reply 84

11/28/2014

I don't believe in the current vapid concept of kharma, but I'll make an exception for this:

I'm thinking of taking up smoking. Would Virginia Slims be a good brand?

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reply 86

11/28/2014

How do you even smoke four packs a day? You must have to light up the second you wake up and keep chain smoking right until you go to bed.

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reply 87

11/28/2014

I smoked that much and sometimes more, R87. I started my day with a cigarette and that's also how I ended it.

After I quit, I went to visit friends. One of them said something seemed odd and he realized it was because he had never seen me without a cigarette.

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reply 88

11/28/2014

Also, R88, you didn't have stale cigarette scent wafting off you anymore.

I worked for a man who smoked a lot. The smell was completely overwhelming.

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reply 89

11/28/2014

I think the list should be changed to people who died from smoking after it was well known that smoking causes cancer and they continued to smoke and didn't quit and then died of cancer.

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reply 90

11/28/2014

Heavy smokers have an "overwhelming" odor. You're right, R89. The smell comes out of their pores.

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reply 91

11/28/2014

He was a heavy smoker himself, R89.

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reply 92

11/28/2014

[quote]Patrick Swayze should be on this list. He was a three-pack-a day smoker. Even after his [pancreatic cancer] diagnosis he continued to smoke.

To be fair, by the time he was diagnosed, there probably wasn't any point to quitting smoking.

Why quit smoking and suffer, when you're about to die anyway?

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reply 93

11/28/2014

Patrick Reynolds, grandson of RJ Reynolds, is an anti-smoking activist.

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reply 94

11/28/2014

[quote] I remember watching an anti-smoking PSA Yul Brynner made...

I saw that ad too. I think it only aired once.

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reply 95

11/28/2014

[quote]by: Smober 9 years

Is "smober" a typo, or a newfangled hep-cat way to say "not a smoker any more"?

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reply 96

11/28/2014

In he not too distant future we will all have cancer due to Fukushima. Our govt. is concealing the high amount of cesium that has drifted in the air via the trade winds and floated over via the Pacific Ocean to this country. Quitting smoking is NOT going to help. It's already in our food and water supply and the anti-smoking Nazis know this.

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reply 97

11/28/2014

The smokers are really reaching now, as proven by R97.

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reply 98

11/28/2014

R96:

[quote] Is "smober" a typo, or a newfangled hep-cat way to say "not a smoker any more"?

"Smober" is not a typo. It is a hipster-dufus way of saying a former smoker. My friends and I came up with it, but I am sure others have invented it as well.

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reply 99

11/29/2014

R97, of course quitting smoking will add healthy years to your life. You can buy a detector for whatever it is that you're worried about, and discover that there is no problem. Besides, don't we get a pause after the Ebola panic to catch our breath, before we get another baseless scare to worry about?

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reply 100

11/29/2014

When I quit smoking, I used the patch. Only then did I discover the taste of nicotine, which I sensed on my tongue. When I smoked, the taste was masked by the taste of smoke, but the patch, of course, had no smoke. Nicotine has a bitter taste. Since then, I've smelled that smell on others. I worked with a guy who apparently washed up after smoking. I never sensed smoke on him, but I did detect the nicotine smell. I just think it is interesting that the nicotine in the patch travelled to my tongue in my bloodstream, apparently.

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reply 101

11/29/2014

There are no guarantees when it comes to health. We all know people who never smoked, never drank, exercised religiously, watched their weight then died at 50. Diddo for the old granny who died at 90 with a cigarette in her mouth having smoked 3 packs a day since she was 11 and was never sick a day in her life.

The best we can do is try to stack the odds in our favor and hope for the best. A big stack to add in one's favor is to not smoke or stop as young as possible.

I quit 4 years ago after 30 years of smoking. I was amazed I could do it. For a long time I accepted that I would be a smoker until my dying day and that day would be sooner rather than later (my mother died at of lung cancer at 55. She started smoking at 14, not unusual for someone coming of age in the early 1940's).

I quit thanks to Bloomberg. The price of a pack went up to $14, which for a pack a day habit equals $400 a month. It just seemed like a huge amount of money for a pack where as, somehow, $13 a pack the day before didn't seem that unreasonable (there is no real logic to all of thus). I also wanted to quit but it was the increased price that really drove home the absurdity and dependence of it all.

Statically, for men, stopping at 50 greatly reduces one's odds of getting lung cancer or other smoking-related diseases. I was close to that age and thought now or never. I got a prescription for Chantix (I had quite before for a few months with Wellbutrin, which made me completely nutz. You can't give an anti-depressant to someone who is not depressed). I used Chantix for two months. I had an order in for the third month (the recommended length of use). I never picked it up. I knew I was done with cigarettes. Why it worked for me was, I think, because I was very motivated to quit and Chantix gave a nice buzz with my morning coffee which I always loved the whole time I was a smoker. I was a complete nicotine addict, lighting up with seconds of getting out of bed. Chantix also greatly reduced the intensity and frequency of cravings to the point that I could just ride them willingly and easily.

I've only two bad cravings, equal to a smoker about to light up. Both cases I was in a country with a high smoking rate. Other than that, seeing people smoke and smelling it causes pity and revulsion rather than desire for a cigarette. The smell is awful, smokers it is much more awful than you can imagine. We can smell it from hundreds of feet away. I hate to tell you but no amount of washing or oral care will mask the smell. We smell it and it is disgusting.

As a non-smoker, I am enjoy immensely the incredible taste of food, of not being self-conscious of how I or my breath smell, feeling completely free (I never realized how much my choices on any given day were based on making sure that I could smoke when I wanted to or at specific time), and feeling as if I accomplished something I never thought possible. It is also great to be able to savor a moment, a meal, a problem and not have to run out for a cigarette. I think it makes me more present in the here and now. Not smoking has definitely made me much, much calmer.

The other welcomed benefit is the incredible saving of money and knowing that some corporation is not getting rich off a product that is HIGHLY addictive and VERY destructive.

Smoking is not sophisticated, edgy, cool, a statement about individualism. Quite the opposite, a corporation got you addicted, it has known very well how to do this for decades, and it is all a very expensive and deadly dealer/user relationship.

Above and beyond my seeming bitchiness about it, I never say anything to people smoking where it is permitted, I let guests smoke all they want in my apartment when they come to visit (I want them to feel comfortable). My apartment has a lot of windows so it easy to air it out well. I educate my nieces and nephews and other young people in my life about smoking before they start. I will not love them any less if they do, but their life would be so much better and easier if they never lit up.

by I don't wheeze anymore!

reply 102

11/29/2014

R46, it's disheartening to see how many young people smoke when they know how smoking affects your health. It's not like in the past when doctors would recommend a brand of cigarettes in TV commercials.

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